Little-known novel named Manitoba book of year

Bombers, Stamps rumble a can’t-miss must-win

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers, Calgary Stampeders and Saskatchewan Roughriders are playing musical chairs and pretty soon the music is going to stop.

One of them will be left without a seat at the post-season table, and Saturday’s clash between the Bombers (7-8) and Stampeders (8-8) at Princess Auto Stadium (6 p.m.) will go a long way toward determining who that will be.

You’re not going to want to miss this one.

“We’ve shown we can play great, we’ve shown we can play terrible. So, let’s try to play on the great side and really lock in,” said Bombers halfback Evan Holm on the team’s mindset this week.

Powerful allegory, magic wonder as ballet takes on Stravinsky

The Royal Winnipeg Ballet opened its mainstage season with fire and ice Thursday, as it paid homage to Russian composer Igor Stravinsky with Stravinsky Stories.

Local balletomanes may remember Alexei Ratmansky as a principal dancer during the early 1990s. The internationally renowned dance artist returns in a full-circle moment to stage The Fairy’s Kiss, the 50-minute work his first collaboration with the RWB in more than 30 years. He began flexing his choreographic muscles in its downtown studios with an earlier, reimagined incarnation in 1994, based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Ice Maiden, in turn set to Stravinsky’s own tribute to Tchaikovsky’s lushly romantic ballet scores.

Its narrative follows the journey of a Young Man (newly minted principal dancer Skylar Campbell, with all leads alternating) saved — and kissed — by a Fairy (principal dancer Elizabeth Lamont, who rips off a dizzying set of “fouettes”) after his Mother (former principal dancer Vanessa Léonard adding her own gravitas) perishes in a blizzard.

After falling in love with his fiancée (principal dancer Alanna McAdie, infusing her character with innocent youthfulness grounded by intricate footwork), he is tricked on his wedding day by the now disguised Fairy who reveals her true identity — and his ultimate destiny.

Longtime voice of the Blue and Gold marks major milestone

Bob McGregor made his debut as the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ public-address announcer on June 7, 1997, during a pre-season game at Winnipeg Stadium between the hometown Blue Bombers and their western rivals, the Calgary Stampeders.

McGregor will be behind the microphone again this Saturday, detailing the action on the field in addition to leading a boisterous Princess Auto Stadium crowd through what has become his signature call, “And that is another Winnipeg Blue Bombers first down!”

The Bombers’ final home date of the 2026 regular season will mark a major milestone for McGregor, and the former newscaster feels it’s only fitting the same two teams as 10,717 days ago — the Bombers and Stampeders — will be the ones butting helmets.

“I knew at the start of the season I was closing in on 300 games as the PA guy, only it wasn’t until I went through the schedule that I realized my 300th would be Winnipeg-Calgary, which struck me as kind of cool,” McGregor says, seated in a St. James breakfast nook, dressed in dark trousers and a blue-and-gold Blue Bombers golf shirt.

Building new addition to bouldering community

If you can’t find your footing, try climbing.

It worked for David Kalmakoff. Now, almost 10 years after taking up the sport, he’s opened the Kal Climbing Gym, a bouldering facility in Winnipeg where climbers can practice their skills.

It’s not the first bouldering facility he’s owned, but it’s the first one the public can visit. When the entrepreneur purchased a two-bedroom house a few years ago, he turned the extra bedroom into a climbing space.

“It’s this tiny little wall that doesn’t look like anything at all, but it’s led to hours of enjoyment,” Kalmakoff said. “It’s kind of what sparked the idea that I could do the same thing on a scale that involves other people.”

‘Please excuse us from writing these notes …’

It’s a common-sense prescription for the health-care system. The only wonder is that it took so long to happen.

Stuart-Stevenson tandem gives Jets time for best Hellebuyck trade deal

A weekly lap around the NHL by Free Press hockey writers Ken Wiebe and Mike McIntyre

The New York Islanders are first-overall. The Calgary Flames are in the league basement.

We’re talking about goaltending, specifically the metric of “goals against above expected” as tracked by the Money Puck website which factors in shot quality and location and is a much better measure than traditional numbers such as goals-against-average and even save percentage, which can be heavily influenced by team factors.

In a nutshell, you want to be as high as possible on this list, suggesting your masked men are doing their job by stopping everything they should — and hopefully a few more. The lower you are in the 32-team league, the more likely you have a leaky crease.